Saint Magdalene of Nagasaki was born in 1611 as the daughter of a Christian couple martyred about 1620. With the arrival of the Augustinian Order, Magdalene served as an Augustinian lay sister or tertiary, interpreter and catechist for Fathers Francis of Jesus Terrero and Vincent of Saint Anthony Simoens. In 1632, these two Augustinian friars, who had been her spiritual counselors, were burned alive. After the martyrdom of her counselors, she apprenticed herself to two other Augustinians, Fathers Melchior of Saint Augustine and Martin of Saint Nicholas. When these two friars were also put to death, she turned to Father Jordan de San Esteban, a Dominican. Some time later, and attired in her Augustinian habit, Magdalene turned herself into the authorities and declared herself a follower of Jesus Christ. At age 23, she died on October 16, 1634 after thirteen days of torture, suffocated to death and suspended upside down in a pit of offal on a gibbet ( tsurushi, "reverse hanging"). After death, her body was cremated and her ashes scattered in Nagasaki bay. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on February 18, 1981 in Manila, and canonized on October 18, 1987 at Vatican City.